AusBonsai

Hi everyone. Lat year in Autumn I bought an old JWP that was a bit unthrifty and had fairly bare branches. I'm new to bonsai and have been getting to know how to work with JWP.

This spring it responded with multiple candles and I mistakenly cut these back hard early before any needles had emerged. I did get some minor back budding on bare wood a few cm down the stems.

I say mistakenly, because I've since come across Ryan Neil's videos and read various threads here and now understand that my tree is in development stage, or more properly re-developement, not refinement stage. So now I'm patiently waiting for next spring to come around so I can push all my new buds hard in order to prune them back later in the season to get back budding.

My question is, recently the tree had developed a mass of buds, which makes me happy, but I'm wondering if I should thin them down to just two buds per cluster.

As you will see from the photos, some of them have up to eight buds.

My second question is, if I thin them out, should I select for direction first, ie two buds in the horizontal plane going left and right, or should I just thin to the two fattest buds? Or the best compromise of these two?

Finally, I know that even if I follow the gospel according to Ryan perfectly there may be areas that don't respond to back budding ever.

Thanks

Hey mate,

You’ve picked a doozy to start learning bonsai on.

If you thin out now, the trees remaining buds will elongate into “candles”.

Do you want two long candles or eight small ones? The answer depends on what you want to achieve.

If your objective is to induce backbudding feed heavy all year. Don’t cut the candles.

Is the tree dense with foliage?

How longs it been in the pot?

Have you got a photo showing the whole tree?

Here's an overall picture. 60cm from rim of pot to apex, root pruning shears for scale.

Thin out the weakest buds on the weak branches and the strongest buds on the strong branches to 2 or 3 buds.
Having said that, you have some long bare braches which you will need to progressively cut back over the next few years to compact the entire tree down otherwise you will have nothing to work with down the road.
If you have nothing to cut to, you will have to learn how to graft buds where you need/want them. (and by buds I mean shoots)

Thanks Mike,

yes that was my plan re: grafting in the long term. When, from your experience is the sweet spot for grafting pines in Melbourne?

Would you approach graft with some long shoots or do some sort of cleft graft - I was thinking that the different thicknesses of the scion to under stock would be challenging. Does JWP graft OK if you are only able to match up the cambium on one side of the cut on the under stock?

Rare plant Pat wrote:Thanks Mike,

yes that was my plan re: grafting in the long term. When, from your experience is the sweet spot for grafting pines in Melbourne?

Would you approach graft with some long shoots or do some sort of cleft graft - I was thinking that the different thicknesses of the scion to under stock would be challenging. Does JWP graft OK if you are only able to match up the cambium on one side of the cut on the under stock?

You can graft now but it's getting a bit late. I grafted some blacks last week. Probably best to wait for spring now. Just as the plant is coming out of dormancy is the right time or a bit before that.
They graft easily. Matching the cambium on one side only is normal so you should be fine. The only problem I've found with white pine is that the scions are very thin compared to black pine so use very sharp knives or razor blades.
When you graft on shoots to an established branch, it's sometimes difficult to force vigour into the new shoot if you cannot reduce the strength of the branch you're grafting onto. So if you cannot afford to cut back the branch after the scion takes (which would stimulate it to move) try disbudding it's (the stock branch) tip - if that makes sense.

Thanks Mike,

understand the disbudding - removing the auxin dominance to let the bud activate.

I'm planning to try grafting some JWP onto black pines and approach graft them while they are still in pots.

But if I can get some decent shoots I will try to direct graft. Might be a too gradual process compared to the approach graft.